It’s the buzzword on the tongue of every innovative company: Software as a Service (SaaS). Twenty years ago, SaaS was a little-known term, but now it has completely transformed the way some of the world’s largest organizations run their operations and manage their data. SaaS sounds great – but what exactly is it? In this blog, we tell you about reasons to move to SaaS-based platforms
Understanding SaaS
According to InfoWorld, SaaS is a “software distribution model in which a service provider hosts applications for customers and makes them available to these customers via the internet.” Simply put, SaaS gives companies the ability to operate on mobile devices and computers with storage in the cloud – kicking on-premise hardware to the curb along with its hefty expenses and maintenance.
From food manufacturers to wholesale distribution warehouses, businesses are turning to SaaS to reduce costs, allow for more flexibility within the software and alleviate the pressure from their IT teams. Gartner forecasts that by 2022, SaaS will be a $143.7 billion dollar industry, and Cleanshelf predicts that 80% of all enterprise (and mission-critical) workloads will move to the cloud within the next five years.
As the integration of cloud computing increases, many software providers are adding SaaS capabilities that could lead to huge gains. Let’s talk about how your company can benefit from moving to the cloud.
Five Reasons to Move from On-Premise to the Cloud
Cost
With SaaS, there’s nothing for you to buy or build, which eliminates upfront fees, maintenance, and upgrades. SaaS is a pay-as-you-go system that works like a rental. You pay a service provider to host and manage your data and information without the high upfront cost of a license. Less of the ownership falls on your IT department, which can reduce your IT maintenance costs by as much as 17%. Since you can easily adjust the services based on your business’s needs, you are not paying for any more or less than you need – lowering the overall cost of ownership.
Scalability
Since SaaS is hosted externally, changing your usage plan is painless and can be done in a timely manner without requiring advanced notice. As you acquire new companies, product lines, or facilities, your software can easily adjust and scale to meet your business needs. This is a huge benefit for organizations that are growing quickly as well as enterprises whose volume production tends to be more cyclical in nature.
Reliability
Adopting SaaS means no need to buy, install, update or manage any hardware or software – there’s an entire team dedicated to doing that for you. Upgrades and maintenance are completed in a timely, efficient manner and are able to happen more quickly than with an on-premise solution. SaaS offers over 99% uptime for your software, so no more costly downtime that occurs with on-premise. The old “time is money” adage rings true, and SaaS can save you both. It’s your SaaS vendor’s responsibility to ensure that your company is operating as intended.
Security
When you adopt SaaS, there’s a whole team of professionals dedicated to monitoring and managing your data. On-premise breaches require resources, time, and money to manage and resolve. But with SaaS, the software is hosted in a secure cloud environment with a team that is constantly monitoring and defending your data against security attacks. A cloud-hosted environment lowers the attack surface to threats, but in the unlikely event of a breach, the recovery wouldn’t impact your resources, and your vendor would be responsible for quickly managing and correcting the problem.
Quicker Deployment
With little to no hardware involved, SaaS software can be deployed much quicker than with an on-premise version. While your team and stakeholders are involved throughout the deployment process, more of the ownership and responsibility is placed on your software provider. With SaaS, your business can get the software implemented in a timely manner and realize ROI faster than with an on-premise version.
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